I am a fan of Hatsumi’s books. He is a good writer — an artist; he is able to make you think existence has a purpose. Cool stuff, I admire his work.

I remember I showed his books to a friend and then took him to a Bujinkan class, to which he responded like a real wise-ass: the Bujinkan that can be spoken is not the true Bujinkan. Hatsumi writes beautifully and shares his dream narrative with you; he can make himself desirable to others; he is an artist. But the budo he teaches does not bestowe the same skills as his ability to appeal to you, or yours to accept him.

In social status, and especially in business, much of what makes a person successful is their self-presentation. The rock star’s charisma is what makes them a success, not the music. The music is the background canvas that works once people are receptive to the personal spectacle. In society, talent alone does not create status or ensure survival. What is more useful is ambition, energy, the ability to make people comfortable and laugh, and to speak to their heart.

The bodily arts are interesting, for they take root in the heart immediately. They quickly effect our social presentation.
Martial arts is a discipline which, like dance, is kinesthetic. And the kinesthetic learner is the genius of the arts. And martial arts have mostly become arts, rather than trades, in danger of dying out for lack of necessity.

And so I have seen tons of great artists (martial and otherwise) without the clever endearing qualities in which they can sell themselves to the masses. How strange, that the ability to successful endear oneself to others is an artistic quality, and has no bearing on one’s actual talent or skill in the field being extrapolated. But people without a desire to sell themselves are less likely to seek financial gain from your interaction.

The entertainer does not merely entertain, but rather creates an illusory personality for the world to desire. And like in the world of business, where a compromised upbeat persona is created to angle profitable transactions, the conjured entertainer becomes a necessary function of the art, and soon one loses track of where their own identity lies.

It can seem the different sense faculties all receive energy* and emotional feedback irrespective of one another’s interference. Being exposed to one kind of spirit or energy or whatever through a song or chant, and then one through visual art like a drawing or sigil — though these avenues collide sometimes, they are separate avenues to the mind. It’s like when people collaborate on a project — making music, art, a movie, a business, a kid — their different flavors blend and make something new. A lot of creative patterns come down to rules and dynamics like those in music and cuisine (some people’s genes are “unsuccessful” concoctions).

So when perceiving something visually, we take in different energy than when we perceive something through auditory senses (unless they each receive the same flavor of energy, but still…). Yet how much of this isn’t completely in our heads? Because when we think of someone we admire or love, it makes us a little more upbeat; and vice versa when we think of someone we hate or fear — our whole being heats and fogs up a little bit. And then given that mere recollections can expose us to past energies and heavy emotions, it makes me think that all sensory perceptions are not any different than mental phantasms which attempt to imprint themselves upon us.

In other words, when we perceive something with the senses, it is only a vessel trying to imprint itself upon the mind. And when we remember that vessel, it is evidence of successful imprint in that regard. Which is weird, because there’s nothing besides those vessels that can be tangibly understood in this world, and yet there is something beneath all these vessels which is imprinted upon — something which remains apart from actual tangible vessel bodies and so forth.

I think this is related to what I was rambling about the other day with regards to music. So many things in life are just transferences of energetic imprints to the mind through sensory point-event contact. But these transferences can happen with or without the actual sensory contact. The contact is only an attempt in tricking the mind into belief (attachment). And the strongest point of contact is the actual body we exist in.

I guess this is the typical philosophical mantra of Zen people and the whole Heart Sutra thing. It’s really hard to keep in mind when you’re sitting next to a hot babe, though.

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*In this post, and probably in this whole blog, note that I am not talking about qi/chi or prana when I broadly refer to energy. Instead, let’s say energy refers to an overall mental “flavor” or “color” that individual things have. I.e. that of an angry murderer vs. a Theravada master, a sleazy businessman vs. a Shinto priest. Anyway, there’s only a few types of different frequencies, so forget it.

How many states were founded by anarchists? Why every one, because every questioner of the old order is the founder of the new order. — Head Wide Open

Whether or not the stories of Jesus or the Buddha are real, I don’t care. If I had to take a firm stance, I’d just say they are fiction. Not because they can’t be “proved” but because everything is fiction. There are certainly facts that can be recorded, but all interpretations of life are still some manner of fiction.

I suppose I can understand the historian’s impulse to catalog everything, to make sure things are properly remembered and not spun romantically or forgotten completely. But don’t historians have some lofty dreams (kind of like scientists) that if they could only show people what is real, what can be touched, humanity could learn from its mistakes? You know, the whole thing about how “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.” This is all fiction too.

Although it’s said that “truth is stranger than fiction”, often fiction is more real than truth. Or it is the “other side of truth.” No, it’s not more true in an empirical fashion — it’s just more true in that it actually has life to it. It is the breath of the body. The problem with most people’s fiction (here referring to the perceptions we allow ourselves) is that it becomes static, blind, unchanging — as though the breath had stopped or were not spreading throughout the body (and then some people even deny the relevance of the breath).

I often wonder why humanity is so obsessed with storytelling. If you break down stories, you’ll find that all plots often involve some disagreement between two characters or parties. Friction, schisms, drama are all the apple of the artistic eye. Mankind’s greatest moments are still the products of its errors. A great love story has more broken hearts than fulfilled romantic wishes, and great war stories have less to do with heroism than a melancholy fondness for senseless carnage and loss.

But in the world of truth, there is no pleasure or pain. It’s perverse that our lives become fiction and novelties which we tell ourselves — which we pamper our egos with. But that’s no surprise, considering humanity prides itself on illusions of being divine creator and destructor. What else can explain the microprocessor and atomic bomb?

Online social networking is certainly all the rage with the kids these days. It’s nothing I partake of myself, but I’ve certainly encountered those who do, even in the creepy adult world.

But I think I’ve figured it out. It mostly exists as a way for guys to easily talk to girls. Come on, are I not correct? Somebody I respect (for different reasons) once told me he used Facebook to get in touch with people he used to talk to when he was in school. But, clearly those weren’t very relevant or important relationships since he didn’t keep them otherwise, yes? Obvious point, but we’re building up here so stay with me.

See, not only do I think this stuff is just for lazy people to hook up with one another, but I don’t buy the whole “it can be used to reunite with long lost friends” angle. ‘Coz, that takes all the juicy mystery out of the romance of not seeing someone. As we all know, mystery and fear and suspense and romance all comes from not knowing the whole picture.

If you think about it, mysteries and suspense stories or movies seem to be written in reverse. There’s the big event or conclusion, which is revealed or told piece by piece, like a trail of crumbs. When you follow the crumbs, you get to the source of the crumbs and it seems like such a hammer-smash to the psyche because you’ve been eating these little crumbs and then all of a sudden get a whole slice of bread.

Crumbs? What? Where was I? Okay, so whenever I hear of what someone I used to know is up to currently, it’s really not that interesting. And the more I hear, the less interested I am. Usually. Partially because it’s not my business and I probably am too self-involved, but also because it makes the mystery of what they’re doing and who they are start to disappear. In other words, it’s fun and mysterious to not know what people are doing.

Think about it, if someone is really cool or interesting (and I mean genuinely so, like they keep a blog under a cheesy pseudonym that’s about moderately to very interesting esoteric topics) don’t they become more so when their personal information and creative output is harder to come by? It’s just a natural reaction I would think. It’s actually how you attract people in the first place, by creating an aura of mystery around oneself. Geez, just ask girls who are trying to appear sexy about this. It’s a basic level of illusion. If you breach the illusion right away, you won’t want to pursue the person underneath.

But it’s not just social networking I guess. The internet’s multi-faceted features have isolated people to an extreme and taken the mystery out of lots of things. Music, philosophy, science, religion, martial arts… it’s all out there for you to become an expert on without any actual research going into it.

And sexual intercourse! The Futurama episode where Fry downloads and falls in love with a Lucy Liu robot really was about the world of internet porn. Instead of pursuing women or learning good social conduct in order to do so, a new fringe generation of young males often will (A) relegate their sexual urges to a withdrawn haven of pornography and like-minded slimy internet peers or (B) overindulge their sexual urges with as many partners as possible, or make a sport of it. To my knowledge, there is even a culture of “pick-up artists” which is universally accepted and championed at major American universities. Don’t ask me how I know about this stuff. Must be from too much astral projection every day, a haha!

But yeah… the pick up artists are definitely on social networks. Just remember that. If a person is even remotely a predator, they’re on these things. Because… predators don’t usually prey on mystery, right? They prey on victims… people they have all four corners on. A mysterious angle can mean a person has an unexpected risk factor. Or whatever, I might just be nuts.

*nervous smile*

So use your social networking to your heart’s delight! In fact, you might as well, since it has already poisoned the development of skills used in physical social contact. And speaking to people at random on the street in developed and urban areas makes one look like a creep or psycho these days. Ah, how ironic! Random approaches in person are creepy and random approaches through a computer terminal are normal. Fair enough, I suppose.